Creating the perfect e-book reader device is no walk in the park, but iRex Technologies nearly reaches the market with its
Iliad e-book reader ER 0100. Yes, that's the "iRex reader" we've been so feverishly talking about in the last few days. Thanks to Henrycat and our savvy readers we digged out some more tantalizing details for you. We already knew the Iliad would come with a reflective 8.1-inch XGA E Ink-based display; what's new is that the screen is touch-enabled thus accepting user input with a stylus. Other features include support for external SD/MMC and CF II memory cards, USB 1.1, wired (10/100mbit) and unwired (802.11b) Ethernet connections, and - this is the final death blow for the Sony Librie - support for various (audio-)e-book formats (Pdf, xhtml, txt, mp3, other formats in the future). The Iliad is powered with an ARM-based 400MHz Intel XScale which should be more than fast enough for snappy page turns. It comes with available 64MB RAM and 224MB Flash memory. Dimension: 155x216x16mm, weight: 390grams.
More information in the
product specification (PDF).
We hold our breath for this to come true, but according to iRex, e-book fans will be able to buy this device in April 2006 through
their web store.
Related:
iRex next-gen e-book reader based on e Ink (discussion),
iRex new eink device (Henrycat's hi-res image of the Iliad)